Mara Cammarrota

Italian National Institute of Statistics

Development of Information System and Corporate Products, Information Management and Quality Assessment Directorate

Access to Istat official microdata: current challenges and future plans

Microdata access in European countries – Cooperation between National Statistical Institutes and Data Archives – Athens, 16-17 October 2014

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Summary

Products and services related to access of microdata in Istat and recent innovations

The role of scientific research community

Future plans to improve access to microdata

Microdata availability

RDC - ADELEMFRPublic use file

mIcro.STAT

o Specifically created for research with scientific purposes with reference to statistical surveys on individuals or households as well as enterprises.

o Requested exclusively by subjects belonging to universities or research bodies or other subjects with Eurostat requirements for the provision of microdata files.

o Produced since 2009 in accordance to Commission Regulation (EC) no. 831/2002.

o Produced from April 2013 in accordance with Commission Regulation (EC) no. 223/2009 .

o They are developed starting from MFR, as a subsample.

o Download from Istat web-site, subject only to preliminary registration.

o They have a stronger disclosure protection than MFR.

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As stated by the Committee for Directing and Co-ordinating Statistical Information, Istat can transmit personal data to a statistics bureau or agency of the National Statistical System which requests them for statistical purposes.

However, the transmission of personal data with information containing identification data must be limited to exceptional cases, i.e. when data are absolutely and strictly necessary for achieving institutional established objectives.

Microdata for National Statistical System (Sistan)

Files of microdata provided: MFR and mIcro.STAT

(a) MFR published in April 2014. (b) Files published in August 2014. (c) MFR and mIcro.STAT will be published next week. (d) April-December 2013.

SurveyMFR

January-June 2014mIcro.STAT

January-September 2014

Labour Force Survey 19 121

Household budget survey (a) 1 n.a.

Multipurpose survey on households: aspects of daily life (b) - 121

Italian innovation survey (CIS) 3 239Continuing vocational training survey 1 n.a.

Structure of Earning Survey SES - n.a.

Survey on agricultural holding structure and output - n.a.

Survey on road accidents resulting in death or injury - 108

University graduates Census - 60

PhD graduates vocational integration 5 63Graduates vocational integration 8 185Educational and Professional paths of upper secondary school graduates Survey 6 109

Social inclusion of people with functional limitations (c) …. ….

Total 43 1006Total 2013 66 1642 (d)

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Public use files (mIcro.STAT): two comments

Statistics shows that users appreciated these freely downloaded files

Moreover, a detail analysis or mIcro.STAT users show that about 30% of download stems from research community.

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Access to the Laboratory ADELE

Since 2012, Istat has created a network of points of access to the Research Data Centre in each Istat regional office (currently eighteen), decreasing costs for travel related to each project. Each office has a remote access to our central office in Rome. Also Regional Laboratory are controlled and supervised by Istat staff

Year January-June Total per year

2011 15 24

2012 13 29

2013 6 18

2014 16 -

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The role of scientific research community

Istat has different ways to receive suggestions from the scientific research community:

The User statistical information Committee, defined at the end of 2011 (CUIS), has the aim to improve the quality of statistical information and the dissemination/access to data

MFR and mIcro.STAT are produced considering general requests coming from our public

In 2011 Istat held a workshop with the aim to analyse needs for microdata on enterprises. The discussion with university researchers and business representatives resulted in the development of new files integrating different source of microdata, to better describe complex phenomena. New linked business microdata are now available for researchers in our RDC ADELE

.

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First steps towards a data archive Together with tools and services, products represent the core of

data archiving. In order to meet new and heterogeneous needs of data users, in recent years Istat has varied existing modes of access and has developed new products (mIcro.STAT and linked microdata).

Our RDC ADELE allows researchers to analyse any micro-data produced by Istat (related to over than 200 surveys and about 7.000 files) in any of the 18 Istat regional offices across Italy and new linked business microdata are available.

Starting from September 2014, in order to help our RDC users, a web catalogue containing all surveys available in ADELE Laboratory (Laboratory for Elementary Data Analysis) is presented in Istat website. All visitors of our catalogue can browse survey metadata (variables, classification, etc.); information coming from SIQual (information system on quality) related to activities developed to guarantee quality of the produced statistical information; the status (active, suspended or ceased) of the surveys. This catalogue is available only in Italian but for the end of October also in the English version.

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Future plans

Istat is now planning the development of remote data access following best practices used at international level (the Australian Bureau of statistics, ABS).

A review of legal framework is necessary to facilitate connections with users

Istat is launching a project with Bank of Italy and Ministry of Education to:-create a single point for finding all relevant information about microdata;-develop micro-data products and services tailored to user needs and providing services that facilitate connections with users.

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Thank you for your attention!